Five Super Easy $5 Dinner Ideas

I'm glad you're here today and excited to share five $5 dinner ideas. I'm going to cook all these meals in the Crockpot.

So, this should help us with making an easy meal plan that's also really easy on the budget. I've got a lot of ideas for us today, so let's go ahead and get started.

Crockpot chicken prep

I don't have any boneless chicken to cook with, so, at the beginning of the week, I'll cook my chicken in the Instant Pot, then I'm going to debone it.

I will put it in the refrigerator, ready throughout the week for me to use in the Crockpot meals.

1. Chicken tostadas

This is probably about two cups of chicken.

I will sprinkle it with salt, a teaspoon or two of cumin, a teaspoon of chili powder, and a container of pre-made salsa.

I'm going to pour half of that salsa on top of the chicken, and then I'm going to cover it.

Since my chicken is already cooked, I will put it on low for about two hours.

I'm going to use two corn tostadas for each serving.

I will layer them with the ingredients, just starting with the chicken.

I have shredded cheese, diced tomatoes, and sour cream, and I will top it with a little more salsa.

2. Chicken stroganoff

I will start by adding three tablespoons of butter to the bottom of my Crockpot.

I have my chicken so that I will shred that on top of the butter. I try to use about two cups for our family meals.

I bought these canned mushrooms, and I've drained them.

I'm going to pour them on top of the chicken, and then I'm going to add about a cup and a half of chicken broth.

I reserved this from when I was cooking my chicken. I added a teaspoon of salt, a sprinkle of onion powder, and garlic powder. That's probably about half a teaspoon each. Then, I'm going to use two tablespoons of Italian seasoning.

I will put this on low and let it cook while I'm gone today.

When this is done, I'm going to stir the chicken stroganoff. I am cooking some angel hair pasta and some green beans.

After the pasta is done, I will put a helping of the stroganoff on top of it, top it with a little parmesan cheese, and serve it with the green beans.

3. Easiest vegetable soup

We dump cans of different vegetables into the Crockpot, turn it on, and let it simmer. I will begin with one large can of diced tomatoes and add some Rotel tomatoes for a little spice.

My veggies are a can of carrots, a can of corn, and a can of green beans. I won't drain any of those vegetables because I want all that flavor incorporated into our soup.

Add two tablespoons of Italian seasoning and two teaspoons of salt. Give it a good stir.

Turn the slow cooker on low and leave it all day. The soup turns out to be delicious and flavorful.

I served mine with crackers. It made a delicious, super simple, and easy meal.

4. King Ranch chicken

I took 12 six-inch corn tortillas and cut them into strips.

That's going to be the bottom layer.

We will shred the rest of our cooked chicken into the bowl.

The recipe I found for these calls for two cans of cream of chicken, but I have made my cream of chicken using three cups of broth and 3 1⁄4 cups of flour, probably a teaspoon or so of salt, and a little bit of pepper.

I just heated that on the stove until it thickened. I have cut up one bell pepper and one onion. I'm going to pour that in and stir.

I will add one can of Rotel tomatoes and two cups of shredded cheese.

Stir this all together again.

Again, we have our corn tortillas layered in the bottom.

We're going to pour a third of our mixture on top.

We're going to add a few more tortillas. Add another third of the mixture, and then you want to put the last tortillas on there.

Then, we will put the last bit of our chicken mixture and spread it around.

Sprinkle a little bit more cheese on the top.

Cover this, put it on low, and cook it for about three hours.

I will top each serving with sour cream and a side salad.

5. Beef enchiladas

I'll stir this and whisk it and let it simmer on the stove, stirring it now and again for probably 10 minutes until it thickens.

While this is thickening, I will prepare the ground beef and other ingredients. I have quartered five flour tortillas, shredded some cheese, made enchilada sauce, and browned our seasoned ground beef.

I will start by putting some enchilada sauce in the bottom of the crockpot, turning it too high so that it can warm up, and then placing a layer of these tortillas on the bottom.

I will sprinkle about half of the ground beef, half the enchilada sauce, and some cheese. I'm going to repeat that process one more time.

I will cook this on high for about two and a half hours.

Once this is done cooking, I will top it with some sour cream, chopped tomatoes, and cut up some avocado.

$5 dinner ideas

I hope that you have found something to be inspiring to be able to feed your family with these $5 dinner ideas.

What are your family's favorite meals on a budget? I would love to hear about all of those in the comments below.